ABBY HAIGHT/THE OREGONIANHaley Gauntt rises around 3 a.m. most weekdays to open Better Days Coffee, a beacon of warmth and caffiene on Oregon 99W between the Hi Hat restaurant and a Goodwill drop-off. Haley and her younger sister, Morgan, bought the drive-thru cart almost two years ago. "We were raised in a small-business kind of family," Haley says.

It is too early.

Streetlights glare in the velvet dark. Radio's morning drive-time personalities haven't even warmed up their voices.

The busiest stretch of Oregon 99W, just west of Interstate 5, has the air of a ghost town --dark storefronts, few cars, the lonely emptiness of vacant sidewalks.

But there, in a cavernous parking lot between the Hi Hat restaurant and a Goodwill donation center, glows a string of buttery, warm light. A neon "open" sign is a beacon. The reader board promises salvation.

The Gauntt sisters --16 months separate Haley, 26, and Morgan, 25 --are the early morning baristas. They also own the drive-through, another cart in Beaverton and work 12- to 14-hour days. They rarely stay up later than 8 p.m. and, on their rare mornings off, seldom can sleep past 6 a.m. "Vacation" might mean a couple of days at Mount Hood or the coast.

And they couldn't be happier.

"We didn't pay ourselves the first few months," Haley says. "Some people say, 'How can you do it?' But we're our own boss."

The Gauntt sisters grew up in Newberg, where their father is a podiatrist. They are the middle of four daughters.

Haley was 18, just graduated from Newberg High School, when she got her first job pulling shots in a coffee shop. She celebrated her 21st birthday working in the drive-through she and her sister now own. It was then the Perfect Cup, with a different owner. Morgan also worked in coffee shops and dabbled in coffee roasting.

The two studied at Portland State University. Haley graduated with a degree in business, Morgan with a degree in physical education.

Owning a business appealed to the sisters. And they love coffee.

Morgan and her dad scanned the Internet for coffee shops on the market. They spotted a cart for sale in Tigard.

At the same time, Haley was driving on 99W and noticed the drive-through where she once worked. It had stood in the parking lot for more than 10 years and had passed through two owners.

It was the same cart Morgan spied on the Web.

"Once we made our first offer, we started designing the logo," Haley says. "We started testing out coffee companies so that once we really had it, we were on top of everything."

It was a family work party. They gutted the cart's interior, hauled garbage away and cleaned furiously.

They bought a new refrigerator, a new espresso maker.

On May 25, 2006, Better Days Coffee opened. Its logo: "Just one sip away from a better day."

The cart still is squeaky clean. There's no way around the tight space --syrup bottles fill overhead shelves, surplus cups are stashed under the counter and a box of holiday lights is tucked in a corner.

The refrigerator wears a colorful display of magnets, silly stickers and pictures --predominately snapshots of customers and customers' children.

Haley is always busy, cleaning or working on the endless paperwork demanded of a small-business owner. A mirror allows her to see when a customer drives up. The sisters enjoy the interaction with customers and have developed friendships with regulars.

"Did you have snow at your house yesterday?" Haley asks a woman in a pickup. She makes the woman's drink without asking, moving quickly and efficiently. "My doors were frozen shut yesterday when I left for work."

Haley still lives in Newberg, so she wakes at 3 a.m. Usually the shower snaps her awake. But, eventually, she needs coffee.

Like a surprising number of her morning customers, Haley prefers plain-old brewed coffee.

"I'll try a little of everything because I'm the one who makes up the drinks," she says. "Morgan refuses to."